


Cities Will Fall

by Maledisant



Category: MW
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 20:34:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maledisant/pseuds/Maledisant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-movie. Yuki had to adjust his plan to the new circumstances, but he was confident he could pull it off - even though it meant a battle with time and human unpredictability.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cities Will Fall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [psychomachia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychomachia/gifts).



_Born of your rib was my first catacomb  
Back raging inside you  
I finally felt home (...)  
We traded our secrets, melted the chill  
He wept in my water  
He's rising it still  
Sucked on the marrow until we were blind  
In the wake of this nightmare I'm losing my mind  
You said cities will fall  
Cities will fall  
Have no regrets in spite of it all  
As the walls tumble down _

_I won't rest 'til I've found you (...)  
Delivered my shame to your altar divine  
And now I'm your prisoner  
Embalmed in your shrine (...)  
My sacrosanct priest, my medicine man  
Bathing me, blazing me utopian  
Apocalypse rising  
We saw it play out  
a  
Chasing the moon  
Your siren's devout  
You said cities will fall  
Cities will fall  
Have no regrets in spite of it all  
As the walls tumble down  
I'll be wrapped around you_

 _Elysian Fields, Cities Will Fall_

 

I.

Minami ward, Saitama, July 4th 2009

                In the darkness, the ceiling looked like the pale surface of an overhanging moon. Stretched out on the hard mattress of the hotel bed, Yuki raised his hand in the air to trace the cracks and mould stains with his forefinger. He had never been a man given to flights of fancy, but he was not above amusing himself in such aimless ways just to shorten the long, stifling hours of a sleepless night. It had been nearly two years now since he had a good night’s rest; sleep had been the first thing to go when his body started falling apart.

                A faint sound drew his attention to the man beside him. Curled on his side, his face still cut and bruised, Garai slept – but Yuki knew he would much rather not. The sleeping pills Yuki crushed and forced Garai to swallow with a glass of water could only do so much to dull his nightmares. The sound grew louder, a drawn out noise somewhere between nails on a chalkboard and a hard sponge on dry wood. Yuki smiled, his features softened by affectionate exasperation.

                Turning to lay on his side, he reached out to smooth the perpetual crease of worry between Garai’s eyebrows, then let his fingers skim down the stubbled cheek to where the muscles of Garai’s jaw jumped underneath his skin. No sleeping aid could mute the fear and tension that rose to the surface as soon as he let go, not now and not before.

                Yuki pushed one finger between the parted lips, then hooked it so that he could keep Garai’s teeth apart. For a while, it seemed to help, and Garai’s face relaxed; but then, he tensed again, with a choked sob that died somewhere in his throat. When Garai bit down hard on his finger, Yuki winced unconsciously; come morning, there would be torn skin and a burning bruise, but he didn’t really mind the pain.

II.

Yumoto, Iwaki City, July 7th 2009

                “Here,” Yuki said, holding out a glass of fizzing liquid. “Drink this.” Garai took it obediently and drank, tipping his head back and emptying the glass to the last drop. Watching him, Yuki got the impression that Garai would just as easily drink drain cleaner if someone gave it to him, which – well, on the one hand, it made Yuki’s life considerably easier, but on the other, it was beginning to get tedious. He sighed, unzipping the toiletry bag which contained the vast assortment of Garai’s drugs, all ordered neatly in the small pockets inside.

                It was something of a ritual. Yuki had discovered early on that keeping things orderly, symmetrical and sequenced calmed Garai down and helped avoid his violent, screaming fits of psychosis. Not that the recent days saw him having any, but Yuki wasn’t going to take chances.

                Sometimes, he would arrange the pills by size, sometimes by colour, sometimes according to their names. Narrating as he went, Yuki watched as Garai’s gaze followed the unhurried movement of his fingers.

                “This one will make you stronger,” he said, laying out a white, powdery tablet, “these will make you healthy,” three tiny, bright yellow pills joined the line, “and these will make you sleep better.” Aligned precisely along the edge of the table, the colourful procession grew steadily. “These are for the pain,” Yuki added two brownish, oval pills from an unmarked bottle, “and these are to help you remember my name.” He swept the entire line down into his cupped palm and held it to Garai’s mouth.

                As he drank the water Yuki gave him to wash down the semi-legal cocktail, Garai noticed the strikingly white bandage on the forefinger of Yuki’s right hand. He reached out instinctively, but paused, as if wary of touch, and withdrew his hand.

                “I am sorry,” he said, in that slow, halting way he had ever since Yuki coaxed him to talk. “Did I do it again?”

                “It’s okay,” Yuki shook his head, but Garai’s eyes remained fixed on the bandage. “It’s okay, ” Yuki repeated, raising Garai’s chin so that their eyes would meet, then smiled softly. “You didn’t hurt me, Garai.”

                Garai blinked, then averted his eyes. Well, this was certainly not ideal, but still a considerable improvement. For the first couple of days, Garai had simply looked straight through Yuki, with that flat, unmoving gaze Yuki only ever saw on corpses and war photographs. Now, he even stood up  on his own, albeit shakily, and took a few uncertain steps towards the window.

                Bright visual cues, especially brilliant colours, were the one thing that drew and held Garai’s attention. On the street outside, the festive decorations and vivid costumes of the revellers shimmered and twirled in joyful spirals, and Yuki watched as Garai held on to the windowsill for support, leaning forward until his forehead nearly touched the window pane.

                As he was standing lost in thought, Yuki’s hand suddenly spasmed and his fingers went slack around the glass of water he was holding; catching it on reflex, he cursed under his breath. He really had to learn to be more careful. And, he realised looking at his watch, it was nearly check-out time.

                “Can you get dressed by yourself?”

                “Yes.” Then, after a pause, “Are we leaving?”

                “We can’t stay in one place too long, remember?” They didn’t have much to pack; a few toiletries, a couple of spare t-shirts and several items Yuki kept well out of Garai’s reach, including a collection of counterfeit credit cards. Setting the bag by the door, Yuki went over to the window, where Garai was absentmindedly buttoning up his shirt.

                “When it’s dark, I promise we can go outside to watch the stars.” Garai nodded as Yuki straightened out his collar, but his gaze was locked on a string of rainbow-coloured paper cranes floating past the window. Yuki glanced over his shoulder just in time to see the tips of a few bamboo sticks, then turned back with a warm smile.

                “Do you want to write a wish?” A spasm ran through Garai’s features, a shadow of pain gone as soon as it appeared, but then the distant look was back and he let Yuki manoeuvre him gently towards the door. “No, I didn’t think you would.”

III.

Wakabayashi ward, Sendai, July 14th 2009

                “I have given up on trying to understand this world,” Yuki announced with a grimace of distaste. He was trying to find a comfortable position on a chair clearly not designed to accommodate someone with legs as long as his while at the same time eating noodles, keeping an eye on the TV news and maintaining a running commentary for the benefit of Garai, who had declined food and was sitting on the bed, the covers bunched around his waist and a half-asleep look on his face.

                “While shitstains like these...” Yuki waved a hand in the general direction of the TV set, “remain in power even though _everybody around_ _them_ wants to be rid of them.”

                “You consider all politicians shitstains anyway, Yuki,” Garai said in the slightly tired voice of someone who’s had this conversation one too many times before.

                “Apart from myself, yes,” Yuki grinned ferally and Garai rolled his eyes.

                “I don’t think ‘destroying the world’ counts as a valid election program.” Yuki paused and looked up from his noodles, letting his chopsticks rest against the rim of the plastic bowl.

                “Glad to have you back, Garai,” he smiled brightly, “I was getting worried.”

                Garai disentangled himself from the covers and sat on the edge of the bed, still bleary-eyed as he took in his surroundings. He raised a hand gingerly to the dressing on his right temple, where repeated trauma had resulted in quite an ugly injury, then looked down at his feet and up at the flower-patterned curtains, as if taking time to reassure himself that he was relatively unharmed and not in imminent physical danger.

                “Tell me what happened, Yuki,” he finally said, so quietly that his voice barely rose above the chaotic noise of the televised Diet vote.

                Slowly, Yuki put his food away, stretched out his legs and crossed his ankles; he had been looking forward to this moment, and he intended to savour it until the end.

                It turned out that apart from minor details, Garai remembered most of what had transpired up until his fall; but then, he woke up to Yuki offering him a bowl of noodles, the TV blaring in the background, the unmistakable smell of a second-rate hotel room and a very vague recollection of everything in between. When Yuki finished, Garai was pale and his hands were shaking, but he was holding on surprisingly well for a man faced with the story of his own demise. Yuki had to admit he was impressed.

                “Haven’t they looked for my body?” Garai asked, predictably, after a few minutes of sorting everything in his head.

                “Oh, but they did find a body.” Garai flinched at that, just like Yuki thought he would.

                “You didn’t know him, so don’t worry,” Yuki said. “You can imagine whatever pleases you; he might have been homeless, or a family man...” he trailed off, letting his voice hang in the air between them. But for all his naïveté, father Garai was hardly a stupid man, and Yuki knew he must have seen that one coming.

                “They’ll find out it’s not me,” Garai said cautiously, as if afraid that pointing out this obvious flaw in Yuki’s plan would trigger an even more nefarious scheme. But Yuki simply smiled and nodded, getting up to sit next to Garai and throw an arm around his shoulders.

                “It will take a while,” he said in a friendly, explanatory tone. “There are no records. No pictures. No paperwork.” With an air of confidentiality, he drew Garai even closer to his side. “Think about it. Who knows you?” The vein in Garai’s neck jumped slightly, and Yuki fancied he could hear his heartbeat grow erratic. “Who knows your height, your body type, the shape of your hands, that scar above your elbow you got repairing the old merry-go-round in the backyard?” Yuki leaned in and his voice fell to an airy whisper, barely brushing Garai’s ear. “The oldest of them is _nine_.”

                Garai jerked and tried to free himself of Yuki’s iron embrace, but his muscles were unused to much effort and the stronger man’s arm kept him effortlessly in place.

                “So, do you think the Met will ask them to identify your corpse?” Yuki asked softly. He could see Garai’s mouth moving in that worthless litany of his. _Stop it, stop it, stop it,_ everyday for nearly twenty years, and sometimes Yuki wondered if this prayer wasn’t much more fervent than the one offered to the priest’s nominal God. The futility of such invocations Yuki always found distasteful; but father Garai in godless despair was a sight he couldn’t possibly tire of.

                “Oh, right, I forgot!” He exclaimed, and Garai’s half-slumped shoulders shivered violently in his grasp. “There’s always Mika. She’s fifteen this year, isn’t she? Adult enough to handle the sight of a bloated, mutilated...”

                Garai managed to throw off Yuki’s arm and tried to stand, but his legs gave out under him and he crumpled to the floor. Breathing heavily, he looked just like he did right before he was about to have a seizure, except now, he was clearly conscious. And consciousness meant awareness of his own pain. Yuki leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees, feeling a warm surge of contentment that he had managed to repair this exquisite plaything.

                “We handled seeing corpses, didn’t we?” he said evenly. “Do you remember, Garai? You saw your mother’s corpse...” Garai’s breath grew shallow, and Yuki could see his hands claw frantically at the floor.

                “No, I...” he whispered hoarsely, “... oh God help me, I don’t remember.”

                “You’re so _odd_ , Garai,” Yuki said after a pause, looking down at the man kneeling before him. “Me, I wish I didn’t.”

IV.

Saiwai district, Yamagata City, July 25th 2009

                The black and white picture looked slightly out of place on the hi-tech TV screen, its graininess offset by the glossy sleekness framing it. Yuki was sitting cross-legged on the floor, his back against the wall and a flimsy hotel pillow in his lap. Garai’s hair was already fairly long; it always grew ridiculously fast, making it impossible for him to maintain any semblance of a haircut. It spilled across the pillow as Yuki carded his fingers through the black mass, working out the tangles on the way.

                Garai hadn’t even challenged their routine nor Yuki’s itinerary, utterly acquiescent with a mixture of shell-shock, surrender and simply having nowhere else to go. Yuki hadn’t expected anything else, especially since he knew that the way they spent these days was a near-perfect image of the way Garai wished he could spend his life. He’d buried this dream long ago, bitterly aware of just how far-fetched it was; but Yuki could still see the ache burning under Garai’s skin. And at least when it came to Yuki, father Garai was helpless in the face of temptation; so now, when he suddenly found himself in this surreal reality of his own impossible dreams, Yuki was fairly sure that he wouldn’t be trying to leave anytime soon.

                “We used to play at that, remember,” Garai said drowsily. “You were always the dashing sailor who killed the monster single-handedly.”

                “And you were always the scientist who told me how to do it,” Yuki replied softly, tucking a stray strand of hair behind Garai’s ear.

                “You didn’t grow up to be a noble sailor.”

                “No. But you didn’t grow up to know everything, either.”

                They both fell silent, watching the chaos and destruction wrought on the TV screen. All the obliterated houses, the people falling to their deaths, the raging flames – they had once imagined all that, because it made no sense to play saviours if there was no massacre beforehand.

                “The eye-patch never suited you,” Yuki said as the movie was drawing to its climax, “but you still have a penchant for martyrdom, Dr Serizawa.”

                “You’d always save me at the last moment,” Garai stated quietly. Children being children, they killed off thousands in their imaginary stories, but playing at their own death was an entirely different matter.

                “That hasn’t changed, either,” Yuki chuckled, still running his fingers through Garai’s hair. When the credits appeared, Garai pushed himself up to sit on his heels.

                “You know,” he said, “it occurs to me that we might have missed the point of the movie.”

                “Quite spectacularly, I’d say,” Yuki agreed. There was an astounding dose of irony in the fact that their favourite fantasy of fighting with a bloodthirsty fiend was based on a movie which advocated quite the opposite; although Yuki suspected that right now, Garai would rather cast him in the role of the monster.

                “It is... horrifying, isn’t it?” Garai said with a forlorn smile. “It’s as if life decided to teach us a lesson.”

                “Maybe,” Yuki agreed, “but think about it, Garai. That movie saved our lives.” Garai looked at him questioningly. “Well, if it weren’t for our hideout, we’d have been killed.”

                “True.”

                Yuki grimaced and closed his eyes when a burst of light suddenly exploded from the direction of the TV set, but it didn’t help. Even through closed eyelids, the garish colours of the commercials drove sharp needles of pain into his sensitive eyes, especially since the room was otherwise dark.

                “Would you mind turning this off?” he barked impulsively. Garai looked at the remote, lying on the floor right next to Yuki’s hand, then up at Yuki and back at the remote. In the end, he didn’t say anything, simply reaching over Yuki’s knees to get at the device.

                “Should we go to sleep?” Garai inquired in the silence that fell when he shut the TV off.

                “You use the shower first,” Yuki nodded towards the bathroom, but didn’t move. “I’ll be right there.” Again, Garai didn’t say anything, just looked at Yuki, vaguely confused; he seemed to temporarily forget that this was one face you couldn’t really search for answers. At length, he shrugged in agreement and got up, leaving Yuki on his own.

                As he heard the sudden rattle of the running water against the shower frame, Yuki let out a breath of mild relief, then looked down at his crossed, unmoving legs.

V.

Ushijima district, Toyama, July 30th 2009

            “I understand you were informed of the prefectural inspection beforehand,” Yuki said with an affable yet professional smile. “I do hope the time is convenient?”

                The young woman in front of him beamed and nodded.

                “Absolutely,” she said, “I have the paperwork with me.”

                They were standing in the shade provided by the far-reaching branches of several grouped trees, having escaped there from the pouring sunshine. Out of the corner of his eye, Yuki saw that Garai didn’t even raise an eyebrow at this exchange. Well, this would not do. Resigned people were boring people.

                “My name is Akaboshi Intetsu, and this is my associate, Maeda Nobuaki,”  he said, gesturing to Garai, who bowed politely with a disinterested smile.

                “My name is Sawaki Teruo,” she said brightly, returning the greeting, and Yuki felt a deeply pleasurable pang of satisfaction at seeing Garai’s face turn ashen within a heartbeat.

                The conversation did not take long; all Yuki did was look carefully at the few documents she had brought along while she summarised their contents. In the end, they agreed to meet at a hospital the following day and parted. As the woman left, Yuki came over to Garai and together, they watched her disappear in the crowd of pedestrians.

                “That surname...” Garai said through a constricted throat, without looking at Yuki.

                “Indeed,” Yuki nodded. “I was hoping you’d remember, you were always good with names. She’s his daughter.”

                “What is she doing here?”

                “She studies educational psychology at Todai,” Yuki shrugged. “A very bright girl, or so I’ve been told. She’s here for an internship at a summer camp for diabetic children,” he grinned cheerfully and tapped Garai on the chest. “Just as bleeding-heart as you, then.”

                “Please, don’t,” Garai said, a dark undercurrent of despair in his voice.

                “Well who, then?” Yuki grabbed him by the shoulders and turned him to face the busy street. “Who? You can pick, if you want.” Garai didn’t fight this time, leaning his weight back against Yuki’s hands. He opened his mouth to say something, but couldn’t, and Yuki sniggered at his expression.

                “They’re strangers,” he said reasonably. “You will never even know. Just point, and that’s all you have to do.”

                “No. Yuki, please, I...” Garai began, but Yuki cut him off.

                “You do realise you have done this many times before.” Garai recoiled as if he’d been hit across the face. “So why not her? Just because she’s the daughter of a man you’ve met _once_ in your life, for a grand total of fifteen minutes?”

                “He saved Mika,” Garai said. His voice was weak, but he turned to face Yuki. “While you were the one who would have killed her.” Now that gave Yuki a start. It seemed impossible, but he had actually forgotten that out of all the people gathered on the runway, it was Sawaki who prevented the girl from being blown to bloody tatters. It would be an unforgivable lapse, if it weren’t for the fact that it played rather well into Yuki’s plan anyway.

                “A life for a life, huh?” he said, then pretended to look down at his patent leather shoes. After a while, he raised his head and sighed. “All right,” he said. “I won’t.”

                “What?”

                “I said, I won’t. We can leave now and never come back.” He stepped closer to Garai, so close that Garai unconsciously bit his lip, clearly trying to will down a wave of panic. “Let’s go, Garai.” He reached down and gave Garai’s hand a gentle tug, leaving him no choice but to follow.

VI.

Nakagyo ward, Kyoto, August 9th 2009

                “First time I kissed you, you tasted of _kusa mochi_ ,” Yuki said thoughtfully, pausing in the sweets aisle of a grocery store, and Garai flushed a deep scarlet. Yuki just grinned and grabbed a bag of caramel candy before turning around and adding over his shoulder, “I don’t think I’ve tasted anything like that since.”

                They had been twelve, still scarred and scared, so much so that father Murakoshi relented and let them sleep on one bedding. He did it for the sake of the other children more than for Yuki and Garai; when together, they were both less likely to start screaming in the middle of the night.

                Back then, Garai had deep, dark eyes, much too big for his small, round face. The other children sometimes teased him, saying he looked like a monster from the ocean depths, because you could barely see the whites around the nearly black irises. Yuki liked those eyes, liked the fact that they looked freakishly inhuman in certain lights. Sometimes, when Garai was fast asleep, Yuki would press his fingers hard against the soft, closed eyelids, until Garai gave a whine of pain, turned and buried his face in the pillow.

                At one point, Yuki noticed that these eyes seemed to follow him everywhere, and that no matter what he did, Garai was always watching him. Yuki found that he could cause Garai to make all sorts of interesting faces; he started thinking up various things, like that one time when he caught a rat and played with it until Garai cried, and still he did not look away.

                But Yuki wasn’t certain just how far he could push this game, and he didn’t know how to make sure Garai would not betray him. Bribery, threats and coercing into complicity were all already part of his repertoire, successfully employed against both peers and adults; yet Yuki knew without a doubt that neither would work in this particular case.

                Being twelve, he did not fully understand just how he had arrived at the solution, but he was not so innocent as to be oblivious to its character. He could not stomach the fact that Garai was not completely under his control, and so one early morning he slipped on the dewy grass and let himself be caught, then lost his balance and pulled Garai to land flush on top of him. Their faces no more than a handbreadth apart, all Yuki had to do was allow for a moment of hesitation, then close his eyes and press his mouth softly up against Garai’s.

                The taste was strange, part bitter herbs, part sweet bean paste, part something Yuki couldn’t place, and altogether decidedly less unpleasant than what he had expected. When they pulled apart, Yuki saw Garai’s lips tremble, a shiver run through his lithe frame, and he grinned with satisfaction, knowing that he had made the right decision.

VII.

Asaicho district, Hamada, August 21st 2009

                The bright blood clashed awfully with the turquoise tiles, and Yuki frowned, feeling mildly affronted. Really, they could have chosen a more suitable colour – forest green would look nice, for example. Or the perennial favourite, white. Yuki rather liked the look of blood spatters on clean, white tiles; the perfectionist in him found pleasure in the confidence that he wouldn’t miss anything when cleaning up after himself.

                “Would you look at this shoddy work,” he said, gesturing towards the grotesquely crumpled body with the paper knife he’d only just dislodged from the bloody mess. “I used to be so much better than that.” He turned and shrugged self-deprecatingly. “See, I even got the carpet dirty.”

                “You killed a police officer,” Garai said in the eerily calm and somewhat high-pitched voice of someone holding on to the last shreds of his sanity.

                “It would appear so, yes.”

                “I gather this is generally not a good idea.” Yuki snorted with laughter, then got up from his crouch and shook his head, still chuckling.

                “I honestly cannot imagine how it could get any worse than it already is, Garai.”

                The woman whose body Yuki had so brutally mutilated had knocked on their hotel door twenty minutes earlier and asked for their identification. Yuki’s picture – as well as Garai’s composite – had been sent out to police stations across the entire country, so the only surprise was that it took the fugitives so long to get noticed; but even an artist of evasion and disguise such as Yuki could not keep it up forever.

                It took five minutes, at the most. Yuki opened the door, his natural charm instantly turned up to its full capacity, which proved enough to get the officer past the threshold and close the door behind her. Garai froze by the bed, where he’d been folding the covers, but Yuki smoothly asked him to go to the kitchenette and prepare some tea. Mechanically, Garai turned and left the two alone.

                The next thing he knew, he was standing in the doorway of the bathroom, holding on to the tea tray so hard the cups shook faintly, surveying the scene before him; Yuki drenched in blood, the young woman wedged in an odd position in the bathroom corner, looking as if someone had stuck explosives down her throat.

                “Why...” he began, but found himself unable to continue.

                “Why did I kill her? Well, the sketch they have of you is utterly laughable, but the pictures they have of me are apparently quite good.” Yuki grimaced. “I hate doing this, but I think I will be forced to grow a beard.”

                “No,” Garai shook his head, taking a deep breath. “I meant, why did you... butcher her like that?”

                Yuki looked down at the paper knife he was still clutching with all his force, then simply relaxed the muscles of his hand and forearm. The knife clattered to the floor and his fingers remained limp and motionless.

                “That’s why,” he said matter-of-factly. “I am no longer suited for precision work.”

                “What is wrong?” Garai inquired immediately and for a moment, Yuki considered telling him that he should rather worry about his socks, which were getting soaked with blood. Instead, he merely shrugged and walked past Garai into the bedroom, where he sat down heavily on the bed. Garai went after him, all but dumping the blameless tea on the tabletop, and came to stand a few steps away from Yuki’s hunched figure.

                “What is it?” he repeated firmly, yet in a softer voice.

                “My nervous system’s acting up,” Yuki smiled. “It’s a known side effect of inhaling deadly gas.” Garai knelt quickly right in front of him, grasping and examining Yuki’s hand.

                “But you haven’t had any attacks, not since...”

                “No. Although you filled in for me quite admirably, for a while.” Garai looked up at him with a mixture of anguish and annoyance at his making light of the situation. Yuki sighed and squeezed Garai’s fingers, weakly at first, then a little stronger.

                “See, I’m fine now,” he said. “It doesn’t usually last long. Besides,” he motioned towards the doorway and the off-white carpet with the sweeping arc of bright red stains, “I think we should be going.” Garai turned slowly, as if he only now remembered the corpse with its sickeningly wide open eyes.

                “Yes,” he said, his voice suddenly distant, “I do think it’s time.”

VIII.

Jonan ward, Fukuoka, August 28th

                In the grey light of dawn, the air seemed cold – which it wasn’t – and the furniture and curtains looked dull and drab, which they were. Yuki stretched underneath the soft covers, feeling his joints and muscles shifting into place. He’d actually managed to doze off for an hour, and while hardly well-rested, he did feel a bit refreshed. Feeling a breeze of morning air softly brush his face, he looked to see the heavy curtains swaying gently in the wind coming through the open glass doors.

                Still stretching, Yuki went out on the balcony, only to see Garai standing by the railing, smoking a cigarette.

                “That’s hardly role model behaviour, father,” he chuckled. Calmly, without turning around, Garai killed the cigarette against the iron bar.

                “Well,” he said quietly, “who am I supposed to be a role model for now? You?”

                “You could try,” Yuki approached, letting his hands rest on Garai’s waist.

                “I did,” Garai replied evenly, “and look where it got me.” Yuki rubbed his cheek playfully against the smooth white cotton of Garai’s t-shirt, then leaned down to prop his chin on the shorter man’s shoulder.

                “Stop it with that sullen frowning,” he said lightly. “You’ll get wrinkles.”

                “I know what you’re trying to do, Yuki.”

                “You do?” Yuki chuckled, sliding his hands lower to grasp softly at Garai’s hipbones. “Aren’t you flattering yourself, father?

                “I also know you’re dying.” For a second, Yuki froze with his lips against Garai’s neck, but he composed himself quickly and nuzzled the warm skin.

                “That’s a bit melodramatic,” he chided in a gentle voice. “There really is no need for that.”

                Garai freed himself from the embrace, then turned around to lean back against the railing and look Yuki straight in the face.

                “I’ve been your nurse for the better part of your adult life,” he said. “Did you really think I wouldn’t notice?”

                “It’s not that bad,” Yuki smiled and shrugged. “I mean, you’ve...”        




                “Don’t lie to me, Yuki,” Garai interrupted him with a grimace. “You haven’t lied to me even when you’ve killed, so please don’t start now.” Yuki cocked his head and narrowed his eyes.

                “You’re such a masochist, Garai,” he said after a pause. “You think I’m a monster, yet you cannot live without me. You cannot live without me, yet you convince yourself I’m dying.” He threw his hands up in a theatrical gesture. “Now, where’s the sense in that?”

                He had to keep Garai defenceless and devoted; not for long, since he didn’t have much time left anyway, but he figured it should be enough.  Before Garai could protest again, Yuki took a step forward, trapping him against the railing, then leaned down to ghost a breath against Garai’s lips. He was pleased to see that in spite of everything, Garai’s mouth still trembled, and he did not push Yuki away.

IX.

Nagata district, Kagoshima, September 3rd 2009

                “Are you all right?” came Garai’s voice from the direction of the couch, and Yuki nodded in what he hoped was a reassuring way.

                “I’ll be fine, just give me a moment,” he said softly, evening out his breath to speed up the recovery.

                They had been standing in the common kitchen, where Garai was rather bitingly commenting on Yuki’s onion chopping skills, when Yuki’s legs suddenly went numb and he barely managed to catch himself on the faux-marble tabletop. Thankfully, Garai was strong enough to haul the taller man to their room with relative ease; having laid Yuki down on the bed, he spent quite a while covering up Yuki’s feet and calves, until Yuki got fed up with it and acidly told him to stop fussing.

                Another deep breath, then another. It was all too soon, too early, he still had many things to do, but Yuki overcame the wave of frustration to concentrate on regaining the feeling in his legs. He could already feel his calves, his ankles, then... a mild, but pounding pain which seemed to envelop both his feet. He tried to move them, but to no avail. In the end, he propped himself up on his elbows. His eyes fell on Garai’s oddly blank face, his gaze transfixed on the foot of the bed. Yuki looked down and saw the sheets around his legs soaked in red.

                “I cut your tendons,” Garai said, an evident tone of surprise in his voice, “you can’t move.”

                “I see.” Yuki fell back on the pillows and closed his eyes. “I must admit, I never thought you capable of something like that.”

                “No, neither did I,” came the soft reply.

                “So, what now?” Yuki inquired of the uneven surface of the ceiling. “Are you going to hand me over to the police?”

                “No,” Garai answered calmly, “now, we die.”

                In the silence, Yuki counted his heartbeats, trying to clear his mind and quickly going through all possible solutions to this unforeseen predicament. His plan was so close to coming to its glorious fruition, he could not possibly give up now.

                “Won’t that make you into a murderer, father?”

                “Please, Yuki,” Garai rolled his eyes, “you spend your life with a psychopath, it’s bound to rub off on you a little.”                




                “But why are you so intent on dying with me?” Yuki demanded, immediately changing his tone. “You could be finally free of me.”

                “Stop it, Yuki,” Garai replied. “I never will and we both know that. I told you, I know what you’re trying to do,” he said evenly. “You want me to finish what you won’t be able to. And the thing is,” he sighed, “the thing is, I probably would. This is why I’m so intent on dying with you, Yuki.”

                Stretched out on the bed, the pain in his feet growing sharper with every second, all Yuki could do was listen as Garai continued.

                “I didn’t feel sorry when that officer died, because she was about to take you away from me for the last few days we had left.” Garai paused and Yuki could hear him breathe heavily, as if the next thing he wanted to say was too difficult to put into words. Finally, when he spoke, it was so quiet Yuki barely heard him. “When I realised I was _glad_ she died, I... at that moment I knew I’d do anything you ask of me.” Yuki groaned in mild contempt.

                “Trust you to go soul-searching at the most inopportune of moments, Garai,” he sighed. “Why didn’t you have all these revelations while I could still do something about them?” For a long moment, they were both silent, listening to the distant cries of the seabirds from the harbour.

                “I love you.” 

                “I know, I _made_ you,” Yuki said, his tone suggesting that few things irked him more than people stating the patently obvious. Garai raised his head and looked at him, for so long that Yuki actually began to feel a little disconcerted.

                “Is that really what you think?” he finally asked. Yuki just raised an eyebrow, a sardonic twist to his mouth. “You can’t make someone love you, Yuki,” Garai said softly. “Like, yes, even desire. But not love.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but that one, I did all on my own.”

                “Wouldn’t it make you feel better if you could blame it all on me?” Yuki asked, somewhat exasperated. “I know you have a martyr complex, but really, it was me who went around killing people and whatnot.”

                “It’s not your fault, Yuki.”

                “Oh, you always were adorable like that,” Yuki snorted. “Gas this, gas that. Did it never occur to you that maybe I was simply born a monster?” Garai went slightly pale. Yuki knew perfectly well that this was the one belief Garai held on to throughout his darkest moments, the one thing that kept his world in one piece, even if torn and frayed. Oh, no. If Yuki had to lose the hope he held dear, he was going to make sure Garai would, too. “You know how on the news, they always say ‘oh, he was such a good boy’,” he said in an exaggerated voice.  “But what he did proves that no, he never really was.” Yuki gave a cruel grin. “Maybe I would have turned out exactly the same.”

                “Maybe,” Garai said slowly. “But I certainly wouldn’t.”

                Reaching beside the couch and into Yuki’s bag, Garai pulled out a case made out of hard white plastic, roughly the size of an average notebook. He clicked it open to reveal a couple of thin cooling coils and in the middle, three miniature test-tubes placed snugly in dark grey foam. They were filled with varied doses of a clear liquid, and Garai used his fingernail to tease out the one with just a drop.

                “I think I have a fair idea of what this might be,” he said calmly, holding the tube up and looking closely at its contents. “More than fitting, I would say.”

                “What about other people?” Yuki asked through gritted teeth. “What will happen to them?”

                “Nobody will come here,” Garai shook his head. “I’ve asked the clerk not to disturb us, and you’ve purposely checked us in on an empty floor. Also,” he motioned towards the open window, “the density of the gas means it’ll disperse in the air.”

                “You can’t be sure you won’t kill anyone,” Yuki reasoned, feeling a faint stirring of panic. He could easily overpower Garai, but he couldn’t move fast enough to get to him in time.

                “No,” Garai admitted, “but you just might have convinced me that collateral damage is sometimes necessary.”

                Yuki opened his mouth to speak, but Garai didn’t give him a chance.

                “You have to die, Yuki,” he said softly. “And so do I.” Before Yuki could say anything, Garai pulled at the thin metal wire holding the airtight stopper in place, took a deep breath, then finally unsealed the tube.

                Yuki felt tears well up in his eyes and his nose clog up within a fraction of a second; then, suddenly, he felt as if someone dropped a boulder on his chest. Through the liquid fire in his eyes, he could see Garai get up with unimaginable effort and take a step towards the bed; before everything drowned in utter darkness and searing agony, the last thing he saw was Garai’s outstretched hand.

X.

Epilogue

                “I will believe it when I see it,” he snapped into the phone, his tone so vicious that two passing colleagues cringed fearfully and quickened their pace; everyone knew to steer well clear of him when his somewhat rough disposition turned into genuine anger. Two hours later, they could all sigh in relief, as lieutenant Sawaki was already halfway to Kagoshima.

                The hotel was crawling with people in hazmat suits. Someone pressed a gas mask into Sawaki’s hand, but he chucked it before he even reached the elevator; he had no intention of wearing what he considered an instrument of torture, especially since he knew it wouldn’t help him in the least if any traces of the poison were still around.

                He hoped fervently that the white case he’d seen on photos sent to his mobile phone contained the exact amount of the horrifying substance that had been reported missing; he was one of the few people to know about that, since the Americans decided not to advertise the fact.

                Passing the kitchen, where a whole department of toxicologists pored over every single tile, he finally arrived at the door he’d been directed to. A young American soldier – also in a hazmat suit, of course – stopped him for identification.

                “Sir,” he said, his voice garbled and barely audible, “your gas mask.”

                “Don’t be stupid,” Sawaki barked and pushed past the young man into the room.

                The man lying on the bed was unmistakably Yuki Michio, and he was quite unequivocally dead. Sawaki stepped around the bed, his eyes glued to the stiff, slightly greyish corpse, as if he expected it to jump up and bite straight into his artery. Once handsome, right now Yuki looked considerably less appealing, his eyes bulging with the horror of asphyxiation, his tongue swollen and dark, peeling patches of chemical burn covering his face, neck and arms.

                On the other side of the bed, Sawaki saw the smaller figure of father Garai, kneeling on the floor, reaching out towards Yuki’s curled fingers. In the first instant, Sawaki thought that Garai was alive, his posture quite comfortably relaxed against the bed frame. He didn’t look as horrifying as Yuki, because his face was covered by the mass of his long hair and he looked as if he’d merely fallen asleep in the middle of a prayer. 

                “I can’t believe it’s all over,” said Kawabata, Tachibana’s former classmate who had replaced him as Sawaki’s aide. He had been the one to hassle the Americans for transport, so that the Japanese police could see the scene before it was cleared.

                “It’s not,” Sawaki replied instinctively. From the recesses of his memory, there emerged the image of a small, hunched figure of a biology professor who kept shaking his head as everyone around him cheered the monster’s demise. “If we continue doing things like that,” he said, his eyes falling on the white case, lying open on the couch underneath a makeshift protective tent. “If we continue, it’s very possible something like that will happen in the world again.”

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
